Sleep Paralysis
Stephanie Pappas writes an interesting article about sleep paralysis (SP) and the distress that occurs after one experiences sleep paralysis. I experienced SP quite a bit when I was younger. I can see where some might pursue supernatural explanations of SP.
Perhaps Chris Robinson or Zuleyka Zevallos care to dig into the journal article as I think the objective of the journal article was more on understanding the distress caused by SP. However, psychology is not my area by any stretch of the imagination.
Sleep Paralysis Postepisode Distress Modeling Potential Effects of Episode Characteristics, General Psychological Distress, Beliefs, and Cognitive Style
James Allan Cheyne and Gordon Pennycook
Clinical Psychological Science 2167702612466656, first published on February 12, 2013
http://cpx.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/02/12/2167702612466656.abstract
Originally shared by LiveScience
Sleep paralysis occurs when the brain and body aren’t quite on the same page when it comes to sleep.
December 13, 2015
Happened to me twice.
December 13, 2015
It happens to me quite often
December 13, 2015
I’ve never experienced it. It must be terrible.
December 13, 2015
Wow, thanks for sharing this. I used to have these quite often when I was younger and assumed there was something wrong with me. Now I know there is a name for them. Absolutely terrifying: feeling paralyzed or sometimes not being able to breathe. Fortunately, I never associated them with the supernatural!
December 13, 2015
Rajini Rao, I think I haven’t experienced SP since I was in my 20s. I think it’s interesting that you have experienced SP too. I vaguely remember talking to my Asian friends in undergrad and it seemed quite common.
December 13, 2015
I haven’t experienced SP since my twenties, or possibly thirties either. Perhaps there is an age/maturation related aspect to this.
December 13, 2015
Or maybe it’s exhaustion plus booze. 😁
December 13, 2015
Haha, yes. Not likely to find a control group (not exhausted, no booze) to test this theory.
December 13, 2015
Gnotic Pasta, it makes sense that if one were to wake up from REM sleep prematurely during sleep paralysis, they could hallucinate and explain it away via the supernatural.
December 13, 2015
From the article, “People with analytical thinking styles were less likely to hold such supernatural beliefs”, which is probably why I thought these episodes were physiological and not paranormal in my case. But I can see how people predisposed to supernatural beliefs would be fooled into thinking of alien abductions, etc.
December 13, 2015
Gnotic Pasta, that’s until we scare him next time we are camping.
December 13, 2015
I know, you’ve told me before.
December 13, 2015
I used to get it and it’s quite terrifying! A little sleepwalking, too, and lots and lots of hypnogogic falling experiences, so my limbic system seems a bit out of whack. I’ve grown into it, thankfully. Hypnopompic hallucinations (night terrors) combined with sleep paralysis can be incredibly realistic and detailed, far above and beyond normal nightmares, which I usually spot illogic in while having them and wake myself.
December 13, 2015
Glad you have a good support system, Gretchen S..
December 13, 2015
Chad Haney I did have one nightmare where I was paralyzed and couldn’t wake myself, but I was lucid (it was a garden variety nightmare, not a terror, and they make me lucid) so in the dream I shouted as loud as I could for my sweetie to wake up, and he heard me whimpering and woke me up. Support system as backup to stupid limbic system. 🙂
December 14, 2015
Dear Chad Haney
It is absolutely true that sleep paralysis is very scary. The article on the same is very interesting and informative. Sometimes sleep paralysis also have spiritual causes. Read our article on the following link to know more about the causes and treatment of sleep paralysis.
http://www.spiritualresearchfoundation.org/spiritual-problems/sleep-disorders/sleep-paralysis/
December 14, 2015
Spiritual Science Research Foundation, did you read the LiveScience article? It’s essentially the opposite of the article on your website. The existence of glycine and GABA in the body and how they affect the body can easily be shown. The existence of ghosts and spirits cannot be confirmed.
December 15, 2015
I get them every so often when I’m lucky enough to have a lucid dream, never found them frightening, but I can see why some would. Twice I’ve tried to force myself to do whatever it took to move, just to see how hard it was to get out of, usually I’m more than happy to enjoy the lucid experience. For the one, I woke up right away, was rather saddening. But the other was like the movie Inception, I woke up, but was still in a dream, forced myself to wake up from that, still dreaming, I don’t recall exactly how many times I had to “wake up”, just that I was surprised that it took so many. I don’t remember if that was before or after I had seen the movie 😛
December 15, 2015
Chad Haney there are various tools and experiments which can confirm existence of negative energies (ghosts etc), but modern science doesn’t have the tools to measure such subtle occurrences. At the bottom of this page is an example of various tools which have the ability to measure the spiritual dimension and which we use in our research:
http://www.spiritual.university/spiritual-research/beyond-the-seven-wonders-of-the-world/
People who tried the measures we recommended for overcoming sleep paralysis, had sleep paralysis reduce and stop permanently in 100% of cases without taking any medicines.
December 15, 2015
…. Or, y’know, quitting caffeine has a great success rate with night terrors and other hypnopompic issues, if they aren’t simply outgrown, which most people do.
December 15, 2015
Spiritual Science Research Foundation, I think we’ll just have to agree not to cross streams.
December 19, 2015
Pris Michael, are you trying to say you disagree with sleep paralysis being based on glycine, GABA, etc.?
December 20, 2015
I’m curious, Pris Michael, did you read the article?
December 20, 2015
fascinated like a cobra and snake charmer…
January 2, 2016
Crazy…
January 6, 2016
I have had this many times. It’s not a good feeling. Doctor dx with explanations. This helps but it’s still not funny.
January 6, 2016
It’s not supposed to be funny.
January 6, 2016
That’s the point. It is very intense and frightening each time. Knowing you’re validated by the medical community via your doctor helps somewhat in my case. I often can identify oncoming episodes and am sometimes successful to prevent them. However it’s a terrible feeling to be caught paralyzed. Your brain is awake fulling aware. Your body in deep sleep is functioning as such. Not only am I begging my brain to just move a finger or toe to set me free. While arguing that point with myself, until I get a response it feels as if I’ll suffocate at minimized respiratory function. “Not” was not excluded in my statement Logically implided as such. Of course it’s not meant to be funny! Why would it be? That wasn’t cruelly implided. My apologies to anyone who may interpret my statement as anything less than humanistic understanding.
July 27, 2016
😱creepy